Breakfast
by Feared-Director
Summary: Finished. Very finished, or at least as finished as it gets. Slash and stuff. And mushrooms.
1. Mushroom Hunting

The Kitchens were surprisingly busy for 4am. David Lister idly noted that and then returned his attention to what was really important.  
  
He was hungry.  
  
One of his good friends in catering, and he had many, was making him a roast beef and nutella sandwich, but he was taking his sweet, sweet time. Dave was bored. Very bored. Sandwiches are fun to eat and fun to make, but watching there creation is duller than a fish cleaning knife after two hours of said cleaning. He decided to explore the kitchens.  
  
A person he kind of recognized as 'Headbanger' Harris was arguing loudly with Tim, the chef Kochanski had left Dave for, about cheese puffs. Tim was trying as hard as he could to calm him down and get the point that there were No Cheese Puffs On Board before the entire ship was woken by his shouting and came rushing to the kitchens to find out what the hell was going on.  
  
And Dave saw them.  
  
Mushrooms.  
  
Dave didn't really like mushrooms. I wouldn't eat them if he could help it. He had no problem with the idea of fungus, he bred various species of it for fun, but eating it. Eating it was a bit much, even for him.  
  
Rimmer, however, loved mushrooms. They were on his list of favorite foods (Dave had seen it once) right up there with mashed potatoes and different kinds of fish.  
  
(of course, this episode would forever scare Arnold off of mushrooms. But let's wait a bit for that.)  
  
There were quite a lot of mushrooms. Enough for... oh.. breakfast? Perfect timing too.  
  
Dave checks all the directions he could think of, including up, and then subtly picked up the mushrooms and put them in his coat pocket.  
  
By then his sandwich was ready, he went, with his ill-gotten foodstuffs, to retrieve it. He left with ideas for breakfast, and maybe some post-breakfast fun (maybe) floating in this head.  
  
A few hours later, Harris finished the argument with Tim (and completely cheese puffless) and returned to the mushrooms. Or, at least, where the mushrooms were supposed to be. But they had vanished.  
  
"Oy oy oy. Who stole my fungi?"

a/n: I know that nobody in the world except me says things like "oy oy oy!" but what the hell. It's my Harris. I can do with him (because I say it's a him) as I please. And he says things like "oy oy oy!" So there.


	2. The Question

Arnold Rimmer has always woken up slowly. There are a hundred thousand million gazillion other incarnations of himself out there, but he is unique in this way.  
  
He likes to savor it. Enjoy the warmth of post sleep before suffering the discomfort of Really Having to Pee. He is of the opinion that it's a lot like cuddling after sex. Of course, noone but Dave knows that, since noone else thinks he has sex at all. Arnold has no desire to destroy that illusion, inaccurate though it may be.  
  
This particular morning, the first thing awake is his nose. This isn't unusual, but it's not exactly brimming over with normal-ness either. His nostrils flare slightly as he takes in and his mind processes the smell of eggs and other breakfasty treats, including, he notes happily, mushrooms. The rest of him slowly jolts into wakefulness, and he realizes someone is very, very near him. He cracks open an eyelid.  
  
An overly familiar gerbil-like (why gerbil-like? oh bugger it, he can't remember, why not) grin floats over him. Connected to it are the face and body of Dave lister.  
  
Arnold mumbles a good morning, turning a it to face Dave properly. He reaches under his pillow and procures an object wrapped in brightly coloured gift wrap. It is, quite obviously, a gift.  
  
Today is their anniversary. Yes, anniversary. For three hundred and sixty five whole days Arnold Rimmer and Dave Lister have been 'together'. Yes. Like that. And in several other ways I'm not talking about.  
  
Dave does not open his present, he puts it on his bunk for later. Judging by size, shape and weight, it's probably a movie. Good. He likes movies. They can watch it later tonight.  
  
After he puts down the parcel, he swoops down to deliver a good morning/thank you peck on the cheek. And then, and then he asks The Question.  
  
"Breakfast?"

A/n: I wrote this after waking up. Except my ears always wake up first, which makes remaining blissfully out of it very hard.


	3. And What

Their break-up had been spectacular. Thrown object, raised voices... Lister had even spent the rest of the night under a table in one of the ship bars, unconscious.  
  
Those mushrooms, allegedly, were some type of hallucinogenic drug. Funki fungi or something to that effect. Lister hadn't eaten any, drug or no, because, as he has said and will continue to say for years to come, mushrooms are icky and he doesn't like them. Rimmer, however, had eaten all of them and suffered a terrible, mind-bending trip.  
  
And, above all, he thought it was intentional.  
  
So, long story short, they ate, fought and split up. All on their anniversary. Of course it couldn't last a year.  
  
Lister had not been allowed back in his quarters for days.  
  
A few days later, Rimmer put Lister 'on report' for the mushrooms. Rimmer's system, being more pure than the fluffy white bunny of innocence, had extended the effects o the mushrooms to a several days. But Rimmer was fairly certain the hallucinations were over.  
  
As it turned out, they both got painting duty. Lister was rather satisfied with this. Sure, it was a horrible, menial task. But they'd be together for it, right?  
  
Rimmer didn't show for PD. Lister asked around. Rimmer had had a relapse. The hallucinations were back. Lister wanted to cry.  
  
Lister trudged back to his quarters, exhausted. Well, we have to take a minute to explain just how exhausted he was. He had been awake from before 4am until about 8am, when he gave Rimmer breakfast, then he had gone between an 8 hour maintenance work shift and chasing the tripped out Rimmer around. Then he'd had the horrible row with Rimmer after work and he'd gone to the bar to drink himself stupid, having already been awake obviously over 24 hours. He'd passed out for about 6 hours and then went between work, trying to talk to Rimmer and 90 minute stretches of nightmare ridden sleep for two or three days. He had just completed an 8 hour PD shift after another grueling (for some reason) 8 hour maintenance shift. He wanted to sleep and not wake up for a month. Maybe in a month, his sleep deprived mind reasoned, this would all be over.  
  
He put his hands on his bunk, meaning to pull himself up. He hand landed on a package. He pulled it off the bed and sat down heavily on a chair. He looked at it. Rimmer's present. He opened it, set it gently on the table and covered his face with his hands. And he did cry. A few minutes of completely and rightfully hysterical sobbing until he recovered enough to say something.  
  
"Oh, Rimmer." 


	4. Pillow

The first meeting with himself hadn't gone well. He thought he was hallucinating. Couldn't blame the guy though. Not after what he'd been through.  
  
So, consequently, Rimmer hung out in the table for most of the day. He popped into Frankenstein's hiding place for a minute to say hi. She seemed rather pleased to see him, but was rather disconcerted that she went right through him when she tried to rub up against him. But even with this brief interlude of entertainment, Rimmer was bored. Being in a table was dull.  
  
After a few hours that were more like centuries, Lister (this time's Lister) ambled in, barely upright. Rimmer watched him, feelings of resentment and curiosity bubbling in him. Watched him clean, watch him feed Franke, watched him change. He felt oddly voyeuristic, but shrugged it off. He watched Lister prepare to pull himself onto his bunk and freeze. Lower himself and pull something off the bunk and sharply turn to sit at the table.  
  
What? Rimmer goggled, why would he stop? He looked more tired than the mother of seven young shrieky children. He should sleep for weeks. Then a flash of brightly colored paper caught his eye. Oh yes. The present.  
  
Rimmer had a very good view. Being in the table, and Lister sitting at the table and all.  
  
Lister unwrapped it with more care and delicacy than Rimmer though he even possessed. Once unwrapped he sat and looked at it for a long time. And, after staring blankly at the movie, he brought his hands to his face and sobbed.  
  
It was heart wrenching.  
  
Lister then stole one of Rimmer's many pens (he'd always wondered where that pen had gotten to) and wrote something on the not brightly colored side of the wrapping paper. And he stuck it under Rimmer's pillow.  
  
Where Rimmer never saw it.  
  
Where Rimmer never would see it.  
  
After Lister was very, very asleep, Rimmer snuck into the bed and read the note. While lying contently under the mattress, he had a think. And came to a decision. And went back to the table.  
  
Many hours later, shortly before leaving to return to his own time Rimmer tried one last time to reason with himself.  
  
"You haven't listened to anything I've told you yet. But please, PLEASE, listen to this. Please. Look under your pillow." 


	5. Who Do You Trust?

Arnold Rimmer doesn't trust himself. He never has, and he knows he never will. Three million and four odd years from now, his holographic self will meet himself from another dimension. He will trust this other him as much as someone suffering from chronic paranoia will trust you to catch them, were they to fall.  
  
And it is no different now. This Rimmer trusts his hologramatic self even less.  
  
But... but this him doesn't want him to do anything. Well, nothing except check under his pillow.  
  
And the pleading. The hurting, aching pleading that littered the man's voice. Arnold thinks there might be something important under his pillow, though he can not for a moment imagine what.  
  
Can he really let such an important discovery go to waste?  
  
He decides to make his so-called 'future' self happy. No skin off his nose, he'd have to look under his pillow sometime, right? Aren't his pajama's under there?  
  
Incidentally, had he not heard the request, he would never look under his pillow again. Not while it still counted. He would change his sheets tomorrow, successfully missing the paper. And his pj's? Sitting folded pristinely on top of his pillow.  
  
Arnold warily lifts his pillow. Under it is the brightly covered paper covered with a sloppy chick scratch scrawl. He opens it fully and reads.  
  
For a few moments he doesn't know what to do, and so sits, staring, possibly re-reading the note over and over. Then a tornado of emotion hits him and he is torn to pieces and thrown in a million directions. He wants to cry, but lack of practice and years of emotional repression render him incapable.  
  
He dry sobs, curling into himself, because he can't think of anything else to do.  
  
The noises wake Dave from his well deserved slumber. He nimbly (for him) drops off the bunk and lands (miraculously) on his feet to check on his bunkmate. His bunkmate who hates him. Once awake enough to process exactly what is wrong he sits on Arnold's bunk and wraps his arms around him, cooing cooing comforting mono-syllables and nonwords. Like Arnold did when Kochanski ripped Dave's heart out and left it on the table. Arnold's arms find themselves clinging to Dave. He forces himself to speak in a voice shakey as a colts first steps.  
  
"I'm sorry Listy."

a/n: One more to go.


	6. Making Up

The first time had been maliciously slow and awkward. Arnold had been horrendously embarrassed and dead certain that due to his ineptitude and complete lack of experience that it would never, ever happen again. Like what happened with McGruder without the head injuries. But Dave, ever the knight in smelly armor, assured him it was not so, and that so it would never be.  
  
The second time had been quick and fumbling. Almost desperate. The third shortly after the second in the shower.  
  
And the many times between the third time and the whateverth time they were at now had been unique, occasionally involved different kinds of sauce and record diligently in Arnold's diary.  
  
Quite well recorded really, if he changed the names he could probably sell the book and have it published as smut. Incidentally, an alternate he did do that and became inanely rich off of it. But that's another story.  
  
It has occasionally been stated by people I cannot be arsed to look up that 'make-up sex' is the best kind. Dave and Arnold couldn't, nor would they, find any argument against that.  
  
They explored one another, as it the few (two, three?) days apart had turned them into completely new people.  
  
Everything seemed over whelmingly fast, drawn out and tortuously slow. It was all over before is satisfactorily began and lasted forever.  
  
It was, all in all, very contradictory.  
  
And, the most read scene in the book it made elsewhere.  
  
Dave snuggled against Arn, falling into a disturbingly deep sleep that wound up lasting days and put him in the medical wing for fatigue. Arnold absently traced meaningless patterns on one of Dave's shoulders. He thought of his future 'self'.  
  
Maybe he was telling the truth.  
  
Maybe.  
  
Three million and a few years later, he still falls through tables. He's still dead.  
  
Maybe, he muses, some things aren't meant to have a happy ending. He looks over at Dave, the Last Human.  
  
The Last Human smiles, something small and flowerlike that Arnold decides is hope blooms somewhere inside of him.  
  
"No, I'm happy enough."

a/n: WB theme music That's all folks.


End file.
